Step Up Training, Day One: Waddles has arrived!

…And I want to rename her “Viola”, even though she knows her name and a chorus of “Hi Louie!” and “Hi Waddles!” is echoing back and forth between my main floor and my basement.

First day in a new home.

We met Samantha (the grey) as well, but the other woman decided to brave her fears and take her home. It’s a coin toss over whether or not the grey will become ours or not at some point, but for now, we have Waddles. =)

She seems like a pretty good girl! She was nervous and understandably didn’t want to come out of her travel cage initially, but after giving her some time while her mom set up a few toys in her cage, she eventually stepped up for her. Once she did, though, she happily accepted scritches and let her Mom pet her; the woman wasn’t even watching her, just petting her like you would a dog or a cat, so I suspect that for the right person, Waddles might be extremely docile.

This suspicion surprises me a bit–why not let a bird out every day to spend time with you if she is that mellow? I will never understand that.

We encouraged them to let us know if there were any triggers for her where she displayed more aggressive behavior, but according to them, there are none. We assured them that we wouldn’t mind, we just want to know if there are, but again, nada.

We’ll see about that.

According to her former owner, when she won’t step up the first time on an open hand, she’ll willing step up for a hand covered in a soft peach cloth, which we have; I plan to use this incredibly sparingly, as trust is key to living with an older, re-homed parrot. She used that to put her in her cage when she didn’t want to hop off the top of the stand. It’s good that it’s an option, but still. I hope I won’t have to use that tactic for any reason.

So now, here I sit, blogging away as she looks around her new temporary home, our basement.